


All's Fair

by stcrmpilot



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Audio: Gallifrey: Time War, also, cause :(
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 13:17:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20471648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stcrmpilot/pseuds/stcrmpilot
Summary: Stranded on a remote military outpost in need of emergency repairs, Narvin and Leela face the dawn of the Time War together.





	All's Fair

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning, the rating may go up in later chapters, haven't decided yet

It has been a rather long time, Leela realizes as she strides down the hallways of the CIA headquarters, since Narvin last left a meeting in any better mood than sulky. These days, he most often marches out in a furious huff, a frown etched into his features and his jaw set against the inevitable bout of complaining. Occasionally, his expression can best be described as murderous, and these are the times that amuse her most, for she thinks his face isn't terribly well suited to looking murderous and in such circumstances one should always savour the small moments of joy where they present themselves. But it's still quite a nice change to see him walking with purpose, a little smile on his face, keeping pace with her as they head for the hangars. 

"I do not understand," she says, because it _ is _puzzling, whether or not she enjoys it. "You are pleased with this mission?"

Narvin casts her a glance without breaking stride, amusement glittering in his eyes. "I suppose you could say that, yes," he muses. 

"I assumed you would consider such work beneath you!" She bounds a few paces ahead, spinning to walk backwards so she can fix him with a grin that's half taunting and half genuine. "A coordinator, doing the job of a technician?"

"_Deputy _ coordinator," he sighs. "And it is most certainly not a technician's job to supervise technicians. It’s a matter of Gallifrey’s security. I shudder to think what they'd get up to without me."

"Ah, so that is why! You look forward to being in charge again!"

He scoffs. "I'm still_ in charge, _" he says. "I simply happen to enjoy a bit of technical work now and again."

He holds up a hand, graciously warning her not to back up any further. Still regarding him with a playful smugness, she crosses her arms over her chest and leans against the frame of the blast door at her back as he reaches the control panel and enters his authorization codes. The massive doors slide open and settle with a great mechanical _ thunk, _ and he turns back to her, clasping his hands behind his back. 

"Besides," he says, "it's not like there's anyone else left to do it."

He inclines his head towards the open TARDIS bay, and she follows him through the doors. 

Leela has a good idea of what their mission is to involve, and so far is not impressed. The Time Lords' concept of war measures fits only loosely with hers; she has little interest in their trick weapons and reality-bending defences, and their constant temporal scheming gives her headaches. She prefers the hands-on field work, a hunt that can be performed with her own eyes and ears and nose, not one faced out of a Battle TARDIS or from behind an impenetrable shield, and certainly not one averted before it ever began. And so the prospect of accompanying Narvin to a remote outpost to oversee the installation of a new transduction barrier does not particularly appeal to her. 

Nevertheless, she can acknowledge the importance of shoring up Gallifrey’s defences. She’s already tangled with Daleks more times than she would wish upon anyone; as inevitable as she believes this war is, she has no desire to see more Time Lords sent into battle than necessary. She only regrets that she is the one being dragged along to do it. 

“I understand that,” she says, raising her voice over the bustle of the hangar. “But why must I come? Perhaps there are few engineers to be spared, but you are hardly the only Time Lord with knowledge of transduction barriers. Romana would be more use on this mission than I!”

Narvin stops in front of a TARDIS in the far corner of the bay, and busies himself at the data terminal next to the ship, reading over the maintenance records as he always does before departing. It’s very convenient timing, Leela thinks, for she knows deflection when she sees it. She narrows her eyes, and waits for him to finish thinking over his answer. 

“Trave,” he answers after a long moment, dragging his gaze away from the terminal to look at her. “The War Council made a fuss about it, wouldn’t let the CIA deal unilaterally with war preparations. Apparently you were an acceptable compromise.”

Leela knows this already; he isn’t lying. She was rather confused when the general came to her with the assignment, and made sure to question him thoroughly about what it would involve—as thoroughly as she could, at least, on such short notice. Clearly less than pleased with her involvement, Trave wasn't much help to her in determining why she, of all possible representatives of the War Council, had been chosen. She resists the urge to huff and cross her arms, yet again getting no real explanation. Dealing with Time Lords is an eternal frustration in the most literal way possible, but she’s unlikely to get anywhere through direct interrogation. Not with Narvin, certainly. 

“Will it be dangerous?” she asks instead. 

“Possibly,” says Narvin, in a tone of voice that suggests he thinks he’s dangling a tempting bit of prey in front of her. “There are few places that aren’t, these days. No doubt that’s why you were allowed to come at all.”

Leela declines to mention that he will be surrounded by soldiers with guns, that as confident as she is in her fighting ability, her knife won’t be much use in the event of a Dalek invasion, and that Trave has made it clear to her that he’s just as baffled as she is. It's not out of pity that she doesn't stop in her tracks and refuse to go anywhere until she gets an honest and sensible answer; it's out of amusement. It’s an unfortunate side effect of the fragile political situation on Gallifrey that she’s hardly gotten any time to herself since the near-incident with the Monans, since her appointment as a CIA liaison to the War Council, and especially since the blasted earthquake at Heartshaven that left her bound to the Capitol for weeks on end. She’s itching to go _ somewhere, _ do _ something, _ and though she’d much rather escape into the Outlands, she’s perfectly capable of making her own fun wherever she ends up. If she really must go watch Narvin watch the outpost technicians fix a shield, then she'll need some sort of game to keep her busy. A hunt for the truth will do just fine. 

That does not, however, mean she's pleased with the whole arrangement. "Well,” she says innocuously, “as you admit to being so helpless against the possible dangers of the outpost, I suppose I have no choice but to protect you."

Narvin opens his mouth to retort, but thinks better of it and presses his lips into a hard line instead. Without further jousting, he steps inside the TARDIS.

The console room is entirely unremarkable—Leela has always resented the tendency of the CIA to keep their TARDISes on the standard dashboard, not a hint of individuality or creativity among them—except that it's piled high with equipment cases and boxes and prefabricated contraptions she can't name, all arranged neatly around the edge of the room. Narvin makes straight for the console and begins his routine of preparing for flight, but Leela stands back; it's almost as though she's entered a world of black and white, save for a few coloured buttons and labels on some of the equipment. She's always thought Narvin's clothing was rather conspicuous, for a spymaster, but here he's practically camouflaged. Perhaps Romana would complain less about the agency's success rates if all their missions took place within standardized TARDISes. 

He shoots her a glance over his shoulder, and she does her best to hide the grin that's crept over her face. 

"What is all this for?" she asks, wandering over to a black rectangular case and tapping her finger on the lid. 

Narvin sweeps around the console and begins typing rapidly on the monitor with one hand, the other adjusting a series of dials. When he looks up to see her standing among the tidy stacks, his expression pinches in dismay. 

"The transduction barriers, of course– oh, er…" He reaches out, as if to stop her touching what appears to be a small generator, but gives up with a sigh and a shake of his head. "It's tricky business, you know. The barriers around the outpost have been largely ignored for the better part of a millennia. I've no idea what state the machinery might be in, so we have to bring along any replacement parts that may be needed, as well as the diagnostic equipment and sensors, a temporary energy shield to protect the base in the event of a catastrophic failure, a–" He seems to notice that her eyes have glazed over slightly, despite her best efforts, and clears his throat sheepishly. "Well, you get the idea."

"I did not know you cared so much for such things," she says, joining him at the console. "I would not have thought you the type to have hobbies."

"I wouldn't expect anything else of you," he says drily. “I happen to enjoy plenty of things.” He swings the monitor out of the way with brisk efficiency. "Forgotten anything?"

"I have my knife," she replies. 

He glances at her, as if expecting her to continue a list. When she doesn't, he rolls his eyes with a huff of laughter and eases the TARDIS into flight. 

The gentle, omnipresent hum of the timeship crescendoes to a steady ebb-and-flow wheeze as the engines reach their peak, the breath of a creature so uniquely Gallifreyan that Leela can't begin to comprehend it. It thrills her, as it does every single time. She's grinning before she knows it, watching the time rotor twist and oscillate, feeling the deck tremble beneath her feet. She wonders, as she does every single time, what Narvin must hear in the rumbles and sighs of the never-ending beast; whether he talks to it in his mind as he guides it through the Vortex, or the other way round; whether he soothes it or argues with it, or with it shares emotions and concepts and directions that she hasn't words for and can't ever learn. She feels its life and knows when it speaks, even without sound, and with that experience comes the sense that there's meaning in its expressions she can't grasp. 

It makes her single human heart leap—that, she's certain, is just as lost on the Time Lords as the ship's strange language is on her, and in that she takes comfort. 

Narvin is a good pilot, she's learned over the years, though she never once has admitted to it. He has all the knowledge and patience and subtlety that the Doctor does not, and his voyages by comparison make her feel as if they've never left the ground. He takes pride in it. In a TARDIS, Leela has found, the pilot is just as fascinating as the ship; as she watches Narvin circle the console, his hands ghosting over the buttons and levers so quickly she wonders whether he's even thinking about it, the smallest of smiles spreads across his face, the light lines around his eyes crinkling slightly and those in his brow smoothing out. He revels in order, in technical perfection, and she has yet to see him happier, or more relaxed, than when he's given the chance to execute it. 

The word _ sweet _passes through her mind, though she's absolutely no idea why. She prefers the Doctor's way. 

But Narvin _ is _a very good pilot—and so Leela isn't holding onto anything when the floor suddenly bucks beneath her. She cries out in surprise as she's thrown to the ground, and barely manages to stop herself tumbling into a stack of boxes, hooking her fingers into the grating to anchor her. When she looks up, instinctively searching for a threat, Narvin is simultaneously clinging to the console and attempting to work the controls, having barely avoided going the same way as her. 

She attempts to call out and demand an explanation, but the TARDIS heaves and shudders again, its mechanisms whining under the strain as it's tossed about through spacetime like so much flotsam. This time she doesn't have to bother avoiding the boxes; the stack tips over all by itself, one of the heavy containers striking her shoulder on the way down. She bites off a shout as a sharp pain radiates from her shoulder blade, and angrily tugs her arm out from under the box, heedless of the scratches the grating leaves on her skin. She pauses a moment, gritting her teeth until the pain fades to a dull ache and she's sure there's nothing broken, then drags herself up onto her knees. 

The ship seems to have finished with the worst of its tantrum, but it still trembles violently all around her. Narvin is struggling to keep it under control, practically hanging off a lever as he strains to reach a bank of switches halfway round the console, his eyes wide and panicked. Before she can think, she's scrambling to her feet, barely managing to stop her knees buckling with the vibrations as she lunges for the console and takes the lever from him, pulling it down with all her might. He shoots her a look of mingled shock and gratitude, and levers his body weight against the console to keep his balance as he frantically works the console. He throws down a last lever, and everything stops with a jolt so rough they're both sent sprawling on the floor. 

He's the first to stir, pulling himself to his hands and knees with a quiet groan; Leela thinks it wise to wait until her head stops spinning quite so much. She hears him hurry back to the console and begin typing frantically. 

Setting her jaw, Leela rises to her feet in one fluid movement. The muscles in her shoulder scream in protest of the whole ordeal, and she winces as she gently flexes the joint; perhaps, she thinks, it isn't quite as healed as she'd like after all. 

"What happened?" she asks, glancing around the console room, at the equipment strewn all over the place. Her heart is still racing, but it appears for now that the danger has passed. "Were we attacked?"

"I– I don't… but that–" Narvin splutters incomprehensibly for a moment, staring wide-eyed at the monitor. "But the… the– the transduction barriers!"

"What _ about _them, Narvin?" Leela snaps. 

"They're… well, they're up! They activated in the middle of our materialization sequence! After I received _ explicit confirmation _ that they'd been lowered!" He blinks. "We're lucky not to have been scattered across a dozen dimensions!"

"Was it the Daleks?" she asks, her hackles raising. "Is it some sort of trap?"

Narvin's expression shifts from stunned, through affronted, and lands on decidedly cross. "Worse," he grumbles. "_Junior techs._"

"What?" 

Without further explanation, he spins on his heel and goes striding off towards the doors, eyes narrowed and hands clenched into fists. He only makes it a few steps before he stops in his tracks, as abruptly as if he's walked into a wall, and turns back. 

"Are you alright?" he asks, concern washing over his features as he searches her face for signs of discomfort. His eyes flick to her arm, and the angry red scratches there, his hands raised but hovering uselessly, and for a moment she's certain he's going to start poking and prodding at her. She's had quite enough of that lately; she lifts her chin and straightens her shoulders proudly, fixing him with a firm stare. 

"I am fine," she says. "It is only scratches and bruises."

He opens his mouth—probably to make an annoying remark about straining her muscles too soon or the dangers of a concussion—but reconsiders her rather hostile look and decides it isn't worth it. He hesitates a moment longer, his gaze drawn inexorably back to the faint, fading scars above her brow in a way she finds supremely irritating. Then his lips press into a hard line, his own irritation at their abrupt landing reinvigorated, and he marches off again. 

Leela follows after with a huff. She must admit that her memories of the disastrous trip to Romana's home remain spotty, but one thing of which she's certain is that she carries no blame for bringing Heartshaven down on her own head; why, then, does everyone insist on making her pay for it? Weeks of doctors' visits and bed rest and_ no running around the Capitol, Leela, you have a concussion, _ and _ no, Leela, you cannot spar until your shoulder has healed_—it's all just about driven her mad. The one upside to this expedition is that she'll finally get out from under the Time Lords' collective thumb for a while, breathe air that doesn't smell of tension and false diplomacy. This was supposed to be her time away from the worrying and the orders. She didn't expect _ Narvin _of all people to drag the fuss along with them. 

Not with respect to her health, at least. It doesn't surprise her in the slightest that he's already snapping at the little welcoming party waiting outside their TARDIS, berating them with all sorts of technical terms that they—simple soldiers, as Leela takes the time to notice—surely don't understand. 

"Be quiet, Narvin," she sighs, coming to stand at his side. "We are alive, are we not?"

"Well yes, but– but– the TARDIS, it's–" 

Leela tires of his stammering and turns her attention to the poor man in the officer's uniform, a tall, youthful Time Lord who clearly hasn't a clue what Narvin is on about. "I am Leela," she says. "This is Narvin. Forgive him, he is very stressed."

"That would be _ Deputy Coordinator _ Narvin, to you," Narvin mutters. "And I do believe a bit of stress is warranted, given that we were nearly atomized a microspan ago."

The soldier looks between the two of them, and his uncertainty eases into a friendly smile, faced with her cavalier attitude. "Captain Ferrenlarcavlinel," he introduces himself with a slight tilt of his head. "Ferren, to you. Welcome to Outpost Lambda my lady, Deputy Coordinator. Best premade ration packs this side of the Arctos Rift."

Leela decides that she likes this captain. He isn't inclined to cower from Narvin's sour mood like the rest of the lot. 

Narvin gives a huff, but his panicked anger seems to have faded into mere frustration. "Yes, well… I'll need to speak to whoever's responsible for the transduction barriers right away. Though _ responsible _may be pushing it," he adds under his breath. 

"Of course, sir," Ferren says easily. He nods to the nervous-looking soldier at his side. "Kayben will escort you. I'll have any equipment you need brought down to the maintenance level."

As if looking for a reason to remain cross, Narvin fidgets on the spot for a moment, then nods sharply and sweeps off before the soldier can get ahead of him. 

Ferren watches them go before turning back to Leela. He blinks, as if just realizing that she's still here, and indeed that she has nowhere at all to be and nothing to do. 

Leela sighs. She anticipated there being an _ attempt _at pretending she has a purpose here, at the least, but it seems she's been forgotten just as quickly as she was roped into the whole business. She casts a glance around the room; it's a tiny hangar, with no present TARDIS complement besides Narvin's CIA-issue vehicle. A technician in black uniform supervises a bank of equipment along the back wall, and as she watches, a pair of mechanics hurry in through the open blast doors and begin fussing over the crashed timeship. Leela supposes it's rather impressive that Narvin managed to land it at all, let alone in approximately the right place, but the poor thing is leaking tendrils of smoke, and she can hear its pained rumbling from out here. She wonders whether it's fit for flight, or if they'll have to send for another TARDIS to get back. 

"Well then," says Ferren, rocking up onto his tip-toes and back. "Have you… got any luggage?"

Leela doesn't think it's wise to joke about her knife with a Time Lord stranger. "No," she says dejectedly, scuffing her foot on the metal floor. 

"Ah." 

He seems rather lost, so Leela decides to put him out of his misery. "Come," she tells him, starting off towards the doors. "If you have nothing better to do, you may show me to my rooms for the night."

Ferren jogs a few steps to catch up, and settles into a long stride beside her. "Nothing much to do at all, really," he admits. "Besides the Rassilonian machinery, everything runs smooth as a tafelshrew's tail around here. The malfunctions are the only excitement we ever get. No offence," he adds, somewhat sheepish. "Would've been a rubbish sort of excitement if we ended up vaporizing our visiting dignitaries."

Leela laughs. "I do not take offence," she says. "Vap-or-iz-ation would have been a kinder fate than the boredom awaiting me."

"I'll say," Ferren grins. He sobers, gathering himself back into a more professional image. "Though I'll admit, my lady, it's not exactly a luxurious stay. We don't really get visitors who require… frequent rest. There's a spare office with a cot in the housing block, should you get tired before your business here is complete. I do hope it's to your satisfaction."

"It will be fine," she dismisses. "Besides, I will be busy."

"Busy?"

"Exploring," she says with a smile. "I am to act as a bodyguard. A bodyguard should know the lay of the land, down to each detail."

He squints, confused. "Well. Quite right, I expect." He leads her around a bend, and comes to a sudden stop. "Er, forgive me," he says, "I don't mean to question your skill, lady Leela, but I must ask. Was it made clear to the deputy coordinator that he'll be surrounded by soldiers? With guns?"

Leela heaves a sigh. "He is aware," she says bitterly, and continues down the hall. 

* * *

The spare office is small and dreary, as painfully utilitarian as every other space on the outpost. As promised, Ferren has had a cot set up behind the desk—shielded from view of the door, Leela notes with approval. A little window set in the back wall bathes the room in strange, alien light; it's this that draws her in, momentarily distracting her from her mission, and she wanders inside to stand at the window. 

She's looking out over a barren, jagged landscape of brownish purple rock, devoid of life and structure as far as she can see, punctuated only by the occasional meagre hill. Even the skies are empty, so filled with dust and swirling stone particulate that not a star can shine through—save for a massive red sun looming above the horizon, setting the clouds ablaze like the glowing eye of some cosmic beast. Leela finds herself transfixed, torn between the instinct to cower from that sun, from the sense of dreaded judgement that washes over her, and the desperate desire to run through those hills until her head is spinning with exhaustion and her skin is smudged with dirt. It's very much like Gallifrey, she thinks, though she's certain any Gallifreyan would disagree; different colours, sure, a different sky, but the same sheltered feeling of gazing upon a wild world from the safety of an enclosure. The same sense of being watched. 

It occurs to her that this is likely the sort of view that old spacers claim will make you go mad, if you look too long. She draws a finger along the panel in the wall, and the window turns opaque. 

There's not much else to note in the little office, so Leela turns her attention back to her game. As she steps back into the hallway, two soldiers in their crimson casual wear cast her a curious look in passing. They've no armour on at all, she notices, and they don't carry stasers or any other visible weaponry. She considers herself lucky to have had limited contact with the Time Lords' newly assembled troops, for the few representatives with whom she interacts regularly are all right pains in the arse, but it means she's rather unprepared for this excursion, and these soldiers are hardly what she expected to find. 

She takes up a brisk pace, following the two who've just passed her. They walk with purpose, entirely unconcerned with her presence, but they also chat and laugh together as they go. They wear easy smiles, making no attempt whatsoever to see who can draw themself up the tallest, who can maintain the most flawless neutral expression, who can flash their collar just right to accentuate the set of their shoulders; they're so different from the tiresome bureaucrats she watches in the halls of the Panopticon that she wonders whether they're even the same species. 

The soldiers stop outside a door marked in Gallifreyan, and pause as one types a key code into a terminal outside. The door slides open, and Leela hurries to cover the distance between them before it can close again. She gets the barest glimpse of a dark room—and then an eyeful of red fabric and gold piping, because the door reopens to reveal Ferren standing inside, gripping a datapad to his chest. 

He blinks down at her, a furrow in his brow. "Oh," he says. 

"What is this place?" she asks, craning her neck to see around him. There's a semicircle of holographic monitors and operating stations in the middle of the room, a circular dais in the centre; along the back wall spans a long viewscreen, every inch occupied by charts and diagrams and data readouts. Some of the stations are occupied, but most sit empty. 

"Oh, er–" Ferren casts a glance behind him, looking rather flustered, for a captain. "This is the comms suite," he says. "Do you… need to contact someone? I'm afraid most channels are locked down right now."

"No. I only came to look." Now Leela turns her searching gaze on him, wondering what's got him all bothered. 

"Ah. Well, then, if you'll excuse me, really must be going." He's out the door and striding down the hallway before he finishes speaking, typing into his datapad as he walks. She watches him clip his shoulder on a corner and stumble, and then he's out of sight. The door slides shut once more. 

Leela entertains the thought of running after him, but figures she'll only be turned away as soon as things get interesting. She also wonders whether she could manage to get a call through to Romana; she never did get a chance to question her about the odd assignment, and in the past she's found Romana a far more pliable source of information than Narvin. But these days there's about a four out of five chance that Romana is in one of her _ very important meetings _ at any given time, and Leela doesn't expect she'll be able to beguile her way into a secure communication with the coordinator of the CIA. 

Sighing, she resigns herself to bothering Narvin as he works; perhaps he'll get annoyed enough to simply tell her what scheme he's cooked up with Romana to get her off Gallifrey. The outpost seems to be quite the maze, however, and she hasn't the slightest clue where he's run off to. She continues past the comms suite, picks a direction at random, and wanders. 

She never does find her way to the maintenance level. Instead, after some time and several dead ends, she winds up in a more occupied area of the base, where Time Lords of varied rank and occupation hurry past her to their varied business. She spots a number of different exercise areas and drill groups, and she pauses to peer into a firing range, but quickly bores of the contactless combat. She's just about ready to turn around and try another route when she comes across the mess hall. 

On a whim, she stops. She leans back against the frame of the wide double doors, crosses her arms, and watches. It's not a meal time, as far as she can tell, and the hall is scattered with individuals and groups on their downtime, eating and talking amongst themselves. Once more, she’s surprised by the ease with which the soldiers and technicians and administrators mingle, so wildly unlike any gathering of Time Lords she’s ever witnessed, but at present the roomful of oddly relaxed beings to her only serves to highlight the few that aren’t so: the operator sitting alone, headset on the table as if he’s forgotten to leave it in the comms suite, picking at his food with an air of distraction; the woman in the corner who seems to have abandoned the thought of eating altogether, and types rapidly into a datapad; the pair of uniformed officers who lean across the table to speak to each other in hushed tones, their eyes darting nervously around the room. Unease stirs within Leela in response, though by and large the hall remains perfectly cheery. 

It’s the contrast, perhaps, that makes her wary. It hardly surprises her to know that certain residents of the outpost know things that others may not—her time working with the War Council has made her particularly familiar with the Time Lord love of rank and order, as well as their insistence on keeping secrets from their own as a matter of strategy—and nor does it surprise her that there are things afoot well worth worrying about, if one knows of them. But to watch the rest of the hall eat and laugh in the meantime is unsettling. It strikes her as something akin to denial, or deceit. And through this lens, she wonders how she could've been so quick to forget her caution. 

Leela knows soldiers. She knows warriors, and strategists, brute-force fighters and the cleverest of spies and assassins. She knows war, most importantly—most importantly, even though Romana says Gallifrey is not fighting. And thus she knows that no matter how kind, considerate, and moral one can be, war changes a person. Combat, real and rehearsed, isolation, hierarchy, camaraderie; it skews one’s sense of perspective, bit by bit, twists and tugs at the conscience until one is able and willing to die on an order, to watch their people die on an order, to kill on an order. Leela decided long ago what and who she is willing to lay down her life for, and indeed the lives of others as well. But the Time Lords haven’t had to think of such things for a very, very long time, and she knows of their compulsive need to either command or be commanded, and in her eyes that makes them very dangerous as warriors. She’s personally witnessed just how quickly an act can migrate from “horrific” to “acceptable” in the collective consciousness of their highest ranking commanders. What about this lot? 

For the first time, Leela wonders whether Narvin didn’t have legitimate reason to want a bodyguard with him. Whether the idea of being around soldiers with guns isn't a reassurance, to him, but a source of misgiving, however slight. And whether, knowing the War Council as she does, that isn’t entirely ridiculous. 

Suddenly Leela regrets biding her time, playing games with Narvin as she has, and feels a twinge of guilt that she’s failed to consider the possibility before now that he might actually want, or require, her protection. It’s far fetched, in her opinion, but he’s always been a good deal more paranoid than she; she isn't one to shirk her duties regardless. And if something were to happen, she thinks, with a growing tightness in her throat, she never would forgive herself. 

She’s made up her mind to forgive him for the boring mission—temporarily, at least—and go search for the maintenance level in earnest, when an abrupt commotion in the hallway stops her short. Everyone around pauses and turns, muttering amongst themselves as they cluster to get a look, blocking her view down the corridor. Then a frantic Time Lord shoves through the crowd, holding a datapad aloft, and nearly trips himself in his haste as he runs into the mess hall, calling out all the way. Leela’s blood goes cold. 

“War!” he cries. “War! Gallifrey’s going to war!”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at [stcrmpilot.tumblr.com](https://stcrmpilot.tumblr.com)


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